Fires scorch Malibu and beyond as the embers of loss layer the sky in an eerie burnt orange glow. What a heavy week this was for Southern California. Not always do we fly effortlessly and freely above the clouds. This is reality.
I feel heavy this weekend. Tired. Ticking off checklists and holding my breath until I feel like I can manage the schedule I’ve embraced. I’m anxious and although I don’t pinpoint the exact source of anxiety; between not eating well, not sleeping well, and back-to-back-to-back flights, the stress surfaces as a subtle ache at my temples, low-grade nausea, and nagging insecurities that swirl through my consciousness.
I do love working a lot. It’s rewarding and addictive. The destinations get me sometimes, but more than that, it’s the challenge and the way that I have to grow, stretch, and continually strive to become better. It’s the way that I never know if I will handle it and how I somehow always find the strength to get through. The secret? I don’t really think there is one, but I do say crazy, desperate, “Help me Jesus” prayers when I’m plating crudite and cheese platters. Not even joking.
The job has been an adventure— every bit of the last ten years of being a flight attendant was a rollercoaster of entertainment. Sometimes up, up, up. Other moments, down, down, down. There are seasons to this experience. For me, it was first all about travel and new destinations. Then, it was all about the foreign; moving around to new bases, kitesurfing, and blogging adventures. Recently, I was 100 percent focused on how much I could make and how many trips I could take. Now? Honestly— the season I am in is good. Kinda perfect if perfect existed. The adventure I have now is the adventure that I want now.
Although where I am is where I want, it doesn’t feel ‘comfortable.’ Hence, why I get to still call it an adventure. If you are getting bored and tired of ‘flight attendant life’ or something else in your world, you need to figure a way to shake things up and challenge yourself. Currently, I feel very much out of my comfort zone; like I’m trying to read directions in a foreign and faraway language. I’m good with work, list making, getting shit done, but I jumped into a new world. I’ve spent the last few months unexpectedly falling in love. Beautiful, vulnerable, world-spinning. I’ve never done ‘Flight Attendant Life’ with a ‘Someone,’ and it’s the most interesting, uncertain, scary, amazing, and gift of an adventure that took me totally by surprise. It’s also very weird to write about. I’ve never ever done this before…
He does adventure like I’ve never seen anyone do adventure; passionately, energetically, unapologetically. He reminds me how amazing my job is and how lucky I am to have it. I cancel plans with ‘us’ because of flights. He takes it with grace, encouragement, and says, “Cool. I’m going climbing with the boys. And when I come home, he gives me a big hug, carries my bags, and makes me a salad. When you are always taking care of other people, it’s the nicest when someone knows you just don’t like onions and grabs you three straws so you can save them for your obsessive sparkling water habit. He’s a firecracker of fun and the last few months, when the private jets aren’t sweeping me away, I’ve found myself swept up by surfing, kiting trips, climbing experiences, Maui moments, and watching him spearfish and catch lobster in the reefs just beyond those $20 million dollar Malibu homes that both of us daydream over. I may not have a lot of sleep right now, a lot of peace, a lot of surety, or comfortability, but if there is one thing I do have; it’s adventure.
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